Grandma Vincenza’s Lasagna

This is by far the best lasagna I have ever had. Of course, I am biased, having grown up with it, but whenever I have made it for friends, they always love it and want the recipe. The key to this thick, rich tasty lasagna is a perfectly seasoned ricotta mixture blended with lots of garlic, romano and mozzarella cheeses. My grandmother also blended some of the tomato sauce into the ricotta mixture rather than just lay it on top.

Ingredients

1 box of lasagna noodles

32 ounces of part skim ricotta

2 eggs

3 cloves of garlic

24 ounces of tomato sauce

1 tablespoon of dried parsley

1 tablespoon of dried basil

1 teaspoon of salt

1 teaspoon of black pepper

1 cup of shredded mozzarella to mix in

½ cup of shredded mozzarella to top

½ cup of grated romano

Boil a quart of water in a large pot and cook the pasta until it is tender but overly cooked and soft

Drain the pasta and set aside to cool

In a large mixing bowl, blend the ricotta and eggs. It is best to this by hand using a wooden spoon

Mix in the salt, pepper, basil and parsley

Using a garlic press, crush the garlic into the ricotta and the mix it in

Add the parmesan and 1 cup of mozzarella and blend everything together completely

Mix in a few tablespoons of the pasta sauce. You should end up with a creamy, pink ricotta mixture the texture of a cake batter

SPREAD A THIN layer of tomato sauce over the bottom of a glass baking dish

Put down one layer of lasagna noodles. Lay the side by side, overlapping a bit until the bottom of the baking dish is covered

Spoon in some of the ricotta and carefully spread it out over the noodles. Be sure to cover all the entire layer of noodles

Put a few more spoons full tomato sauce over the layer of ricotta an spread that out

Place another layer of noodles over this and continue as above, making layers of noodles cheese filling and sauce

The final layer should be a layer of noodles covered with a generous amount of sauce

Place the pan into an oven that has been preheated to 450

Bake o 30 minutes, remove from the oven and sprinkle the ½ cup of mozzarella over the top

Lace the lasagnas back in the oven and cook another 15 minutes

Remove from the oven and allow the lasagna to settle for about 10-15 minutes before serving

Espresso Pudding with Hazlenut Cream

Nothing went to waste in my grandmother’s house, including left over coffee after company had visited. This recipe has been modified and uses instant espresso to make the preparation simpler and quicker. Makes 4-5 servings

Ingredients

4 cups of whole milk

1 cup of sugar

5 tablespoons of cornstarch

2 tablespoons of butter

8 teaspoons of espresso powder or instant espresso

Mix together the sugar, espresso powder and cornstarch in a bowl and set it aside

Heat the milk and butter in a sauce pan until small bubbles start to from around the edges of the milk

Lower the heat and begin to add the dry ingredients a little at a time, whisking constantly as you add

Continue cooking until the pudding begins to thicken and starts to bubble in the center

Remove from heat, pour into small dessert bowls or ramekins and chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour

Topping

Ingredients

6 ounces of whipping cream

¼ cup of confectioners’ sugar

2 teaspoons of hazelnut extract

Mix the ingredients together in a bowl and, using an electric mixer, beat until the cream thickens. Do this just before serving the pudding so that the whipped cream holds up

Spoon onto the pudding and sprinkle on some crushed hazelnuts or shaved dark chocolate

Italian Mac and Cheese with Panchetta or Bacon

1 cup bel paese cheese cubed

½ cup asiago, grated

¼ cup grated parmesan

1/2 cup shredded fontina cheese

1 cup shredded mozzarella

1 cup whole milk

½ teaspoon nutmeg

½ teaspoon of parsley

¼ pound pancetta or bacon1/2 pound of elbow pasta

Cook the pancetta or bacon until crisp and set aside on a paper towel to drain excess grease and to cool

Place the bel paese, asiago,  fontina ad parmesan and milk into a double boiler on low heat (In place of a double boiler you can place a metal mixing bowl into a pan of water or one smaller pan into a slightly larger one pan with water in it)

Slowly melt the cheese stirring constantly with a wire whisk. Do not whisk quickly, use slow rotating strokes

Once the cheese begins to melts and starts to become creamy, add in the nutmeg and parsley

Continue slowly heating. Cheese is ready when it is a creamy, even texture with no lumps.

When the pasta is cooked, drain well allowing al the water to run out through the colander then put the pasta into a large mixing bowl.

Add the crumbled pancetta/bacon

Pour in the cheeses sauced and mix until the cheese sauce has thoroughly mixed into the pasta

Add half the mozzarella and mix into the pasta

Pour the pasta into a small glass baking dish, sprinkle the remaining mozzarella on top and bake at 350 until the mozzarella has melted and begins to brown, about 20 minutes. Let sit outside the oven for 10 minutes before serving.

Garnish with a sprinkling of fresh, snipped basil leaves.

Linda's 5 Cheese Eggplant Parmesan

This is a staple dish for gatherings in my family. A big Sunday or holiday dinner always includes eggplant parmesan. It is a bit time consuming to make, but you will realize it's well worth the effort when you slice into those thick, rich layers of delicious eggplant, sauce and cheese. Although my family uses this as a side dish to a large meal, it can be a meal in itself. It is rich and filling.


Ingredients:
1 large eggplant
4 eggs beaten
2 cups seasoned breadcrumbs
2 grated parmesean cheese
24 ounces of shredded mozzarella
1/2 pound of mild cheddar, sliced thin or shredded
1 cup of grated fontina cheese
1 cup of grated asiago cheese

For those who noticed, no, cheddar is not a cheese normally used in Italian cooking. My mother, Linda, modified the recipe because the sheep's milk cheese one would actually use can be very difficult to find outside of specialty cheese shop. The result was positive. The cheddar adds a nice, rich, creaminess.

Cut off the top and bottom, stem sections of the eggplant and peel away all of the purple outer skin. Some people leave the skin on. It is edible when cooked, but can also be very bitter. This dish works best with peeled eggplant. You don't want the bitter flavor to over power the dish.

Cut the eggplant into thin slices.

Beat the eggs and and place in a large shallow bowl.
Place about a half inch deep layer of breadcrumbs into a second bowl.

Dip the slices of eggplant, one by one, into the egg making sure to coat both sides completely.

Place the eggplant slice into the bowl of breadcrumbs and coat it completely on both sides. Continue this until all of your eggplant slices have been battered. As you continue breading each slice, the breadcrumbs will become gummy and stick together. When this happens and you are find it difficult to easily coat the eggplant, discard the breadcrumbs and put more into the bowl.

Once all the eggplant has been coated and is ready for cooking ready, fill a frying pan with enough oil to completely cover the eggplant slices. These are going to be cooked just a few at a time as they need to be placed in the oil in a single layer.
Place the battered sliced eggplant into the oil, as few at a time so as not to crowd or overlap them in the pan. This may take a while but it is important. otherwise the eggplant will not be evenly and fully fried and therefore will not have the proper taste and texture.

Keep the heat at low to medium low and fry the eggplant until until the breadcrumb coating has turned a deep golden brown. keep an eye on the eggplant while cooking as it is very easy to burn it. Once it has turned golden brown, remove the cooked slices immediately and place on a thick layer of paper towels or a clean dish towel to absorb excess oil. Again, this is an important step so that your end dish does not come out greasy.
Continue this until all the eggplant has been cooked and drained.

Assembling the Dish:
Take your baking dish and cover the bottom with a thin layer of pasta sauce. place the fried eggplant slices into a layer along the bottom of the baking dish. Add a generous layer the cheese mixture making sure to cover all of the eggplant. add a layer of sauce. repeat the layers until you have used all the eggplant. The top layer should consist of sauce and cheese.
Cover with foil and bake at 425 for 40 minutes or until done. When the cheese has melted and begun to brown and the layers underneath are bubbling, your eggplant parmesan is done. remove from the oven and allow it to set for about 10 minutes. This allows the layers to firm up so that they cane more easily be served

Eggplant facts and tips:

Eggplant is a member of the nightshade family of plants. It was once considered to be poisonous.
Even after being cultivated as an edible vegetable, Europeans still believed that consuming the skin would cause insanity. In fact, the skin is edible but it does have a strong, bitter taste.
Eggplant comes in hundreds of varieties, colors, shapes and sizes. The purple skinned variety is the one that most people probably know. It is the most common variety in the US and much of Europe.

Sexing your eggplant:

No, this has nothing to do with a kinky use for eggplant. Sexing an eggplant means being able to determine whether the fruit is male or female.
Why should you care about the gender of your eggplant? Female eggplants have more seeds than males. Seeds make for a more bitter taste and a higher absorption of oil. Eggplants love to suck up oil when they are being fried or sauteed. Females will absorb more than males.

In some dishes, the bitter female is preferred. This would especially true in some Greek and Middle Eastern recipes.
In an eggplant pamesan the male is a better choice. It will have a milder flavor that will blend better with the cheese flavors. It will also soak up less oil while frying and have a less heavy, oily texture.

Some people find eggplant to be harsh on the stomach. For those people the male eggplant  may be easier to digest. Personally, I always prefer a male fruit. It is milder and blends better in a dish like this without over powering the other flavors.

So, how does one sex an eggplant, a question I'm sure many of you have asked many times.

To determine the sex of your eggplant, look at the bottom end opposite the stem. If there is an indentation, like a navel, it is a female. The male's bottom should feel smooth.
Another way to sex an eggplant is by weight. If you pick up two fruits approximately the same size, the lighter one is usually male.

Arancini

Wednesday was hot dog and rice day in the cafeteria of Saint Anthony School.

The boiled hot dog on a stale roll wasn't so bad if you loaded lots of mustard on it, but the rice was another story. It was a more than adequate helping of boiled white rice that had butter mixed in to moisten it. It tasted terrible and nobody wanted to eat it.

My first Wednesday at Saint Anthony, I ate the shriveled, over boiled hotdog and strolled casually to the end of the cafeteria to scrape the white, tasteless mound of rice into the garbage can.

“What do you think you are doing, mister?”

It was Sister Mary Gemma, the meanest nun at Saint Anthony. Sister Mary Gemma was constantly armed with a five foot wooden rod that she handled the way a Samurai Warrior handles his sword.

“I don’t like rice,” I said. “So, I’m throwing it away.”

Sister Mary Gemma stuck the end of her wooden rod against my chest, barring me from getting any closer to the garbage can. “Are you aware that there are children in China who are starving and would love to have that rice,” she asked.

“I think they have lots of rice in China, Sister.” 

A few minutes later, while the other kids were out in the school yard for recess, I sat in the empty cafeteria with the plat of rice in front of me, my hands still stinging after being hit with Sister Mary Gemma’s rod. Finally, Mrs. Manzione, one of the cafeteria workers, took pity on me. As she wiped down the tables, she stealthily grabbed my plate and emptied it in the trash can she dragged around with her.

Week two, I had come up with the plan of placing my napkin over the rice before taking my plate to the back of the cafeteria. I thought surely Sister Mary Gemma would be fooled by the ingenious deception. As I sat nursing my red, swollen hands, Mrs. Manzione, again, emptied my plate.

“You know,” she whispered to me, “you could just do like the other kids and force yourself to eat the rice.”

Being too stubborn to give in, I finally developed the perfect plan. The next Wednesday I was out in the schoolyard with the other children, leaving Sister Mary Gemma smiling smugly in the cafeteria, believing she broken yet another willful child.  

When I got home that afternoon, my grandmother was perplexed as to why the pockets of my uniform jacket were filled with rice. I explained that rice was the most disgusting food ever invented and that if there really were starving children in China, as the nuns always reminded us, it’s because they would rather starve than eat that foul creation. 

I swore I would never eat rice.  My grandmother took this as a challenge and assured me that she could make a rice dish that I would love.

I realized she was right when I tasted my first arancini.

Arancini is a simple rice ball comprised of boiled rice, ham, peas and cheese, coated with breadcrumb and fried.

These can be made as an appetizer, a side dish or a snack. They can eaten as is or covered with tomato sauce. They do freeze well and can be reheated in an oven. Microwave reheating breaks down the texture, substance and flavor, leaving them bland and rubbery.

There are many variations on the recipe. This is how my grandmother made them.

Ingredients

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, minced

1 clove minced garlic

1 cup rice

1/2 cup frozen peas

2 ounces of ham diced

1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

1 egg, beaten

1 egg

3 tablespoons of milk

4 ounces mozzarella cheese, cut into small cubes

1/2 cup flour

1 cup seasoned bread crumbs

1 cup vegetable or canola oil

Directions

Cook the rice according to directions. You can use chicken broth in place of water to cook the rice for some extra flavor. While the rice is cooking, you can start the onion and garlic.

Heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook, stirring frequently until onion is soft. You do not want to brown the onion and garlic.

Mix the cooked onion, garlic into the rice along with the peas and ham.

Allow the mixture to cool enough to add the egg without cooking it and to be able to handle the mixture. Do not let it sit long enough for the rice to dry.

Stir in the beaten egg

Form the rice mixture into balls. These can be small, appetizer size or larger, depending on how they will be served and how big you prefer your balls. Some people like large ones and some people like smaller ones that fit easily into the mouth.

As you form each one, press a chunk of the mozzarella into the center.

Put the milk and the bread crumbs into two separate shallow bowls.

Dip the rice ball into the bowl of milk, coat lightly with flour and then roll it in breadcrumbs and coat well.

Heat the frying oil in a deep saucepan or deep fryer and fry your balls a few at a time, turning frequently. When done, your balls should be a golden brown color.

Set them on a paper towel or dish cloth to drain. Eat as is or cover with tomato sauce.